Fun

Contents

Easter Eggs

Three of the Avatar's companions from Britannia make an
appearance in The Savage Empire, even though they are no longer their former
selves. They are not Eodon natives, but arrived there long ago and adapted to
the savage tribes. Triolo, of the Kurak tribe, is Iolo; Dokray of the Pindiro
tribe is Dupre, and Shamuru of the Barako tribe is Shamino.

Spector, who plays a key role in the game, is actually
supposed to be Warren Spector, the man who came up with the idea for The Savage
Empire, and who was behind great games such as Serpent Isle and Deus Ex. An
interview with Warren Spector
at Through the Looking Glass sheds some
light on his involvement with the game as well as the in-game character that
represents him.

Warren Spector speaks of his involvement with The Savage Empire: "...I came up with the idea for Savage Empire then passed it onto another producer. I had nothing to do with the game beyond the first 20-page design papers. That was kind of my baby."

Seggallion, who appeared in Ultima 5 and 6, also appears
in a secret area of Eodon, accessible only by throwing an explosive over a chasm
to knock down a great tree that serves as a bridge. With Seggallion you'll find
lots of valuables and rifle bullets, as well as two entrances to the Myrmidex
caves and the broken teleporter plate. Seggallion is not very sociable in this
game, and his function is entirely unknown. It is a mystery how he got to the
Valley of Eodon, as well as why he has suddenly become a modern man when he
was previously an average medieval Britannia man.

Stephen Beeman, who had a part in worldbuilding and appears
to have built the caves, left his initials ("SMB") in the
caves map.

Denys, an Urali outcast living in a cave southeast of the Yolaru
village, is most likely an easter egg for Denis Loubet,
who did the art for most (if not all) the Ultimas. The in-game character is a painter
- clearly indicating a connection with Loubet's talent in art.

A long time ago, someone told me about a special Eohippus hiding in the
unused gargoyle map from Ultima 6 (accessible only with
MDHack),
which had its own portrait and was supposed to be an easter egg for Smith. Unfortunately,
I have not been able to verify this myself, and I even forgot who told me this.
Whoever told me about it should contact me, so that I can give him proper
credit for this easter egg (and perhaps I can verify this Eohippus' existence).

Nitpicks

The Savage Empire has an interesting and well-made story. However, Hacki's nitpicking
community still managed to dig up some Savage Empire nitpicks. You can find them at
Hacki's Ultima Page in
English
or in German.

Bugs

When I first dropped the boulder on the Thunderer, the text "Eohippus falls" appeared.
When I replayed the game to write the walkthrough in this guide and dropped the
boulder on the Thunderer again, the text "Gold falls" appeared. It seems that some
bug causes "[object] falls" to be written whenever that particular boulder falls.

A more well-known bug is that if you try to leave the Myrmidex caves after having
beaten the Great Drum, you will be stuck in an infinite, self-repeating grassland.

Mysteries

What does the key at the lab do? There are no such things as locked doors in Eodon (except the sealed entrance of the Kotl city, which has nothing to do with it). The most common guess is that it's just the lab key... but then why include it in the game?

Why do the teleportation plates on the surface of Eodon keep working after you destroy the control panel? The broken teleportation plate on the surface of Eodon seems to be explained by the lack of a generator for it (which probably was broken). There are 14 generators for 14 teleportation plates (7 in the city and 7 on the surface of Eodon). When you destroy the control panel, all the generators and the city teleportation plates stop working, but the teleportation plates on the surface keep working.

Hardcoded text

The GAME.EXE file contains a lot of the written text you will see in the box
at the bottom-right corner of the screen in the game. You can see this text by either
opening the file in a hex editor (such as Irfanview,
which is mainly an image viewer but can also read text and audio files, and has an
in-built hex editor; or the DEBUG tool in the Windows command line), or renaming the
file to .txt and opening it with Notepad. Opening the file reveals some things
not encountered in the game:

One can find the text "Winona Ryder is a really hot babe" (see screenshot). It is not known what this text is doing here, or if it is possible to make it appear in the game.

Looks like The Savage Empire was written with Borland Turbo C++ (1990).

Remnants of Ultima 6

The (messed up) Gargoyle Lands

Using the MDHack cheat, one can teleport to the
Gargoyle Lands from Ultima 6. This area is unused in The Savage Empire, but
still exists. Since all tiles were changed in The Savage Empire, it is obvious
that an Ultima 6 map with Savage Empire tiles has to look like a mess.

The head section in the inventory is useless. You can't wear anything on your head
in The Savage Empire.

Cheating

Using a program called MDHack, you can activate the
Alt codes or use the item creation cheat.

A "Cheatbook Database" program that came with a PCFormat magazine had the following
other cheats you can try. I can't find the CD which it was on, so credit for these
cheats goes to whoever wrote that "Cheatbook Database". I never managed to get these
cheats to work, and a quick search in GAME.EXE reveals that there is no such text as
"The Gods Intervene". However I don't exclude the possibility that these cheats (or
rather, bugs) worked on an earlier version of the game and were fixed in a later
release.

To get unlimited turns, move your character next
to the enemy and press Q (quick). As you strike
the enemy press SPACE. The attack menu reappears
allowing another attack. Keep this up until your
enemy is defeated!

Press ALT-X during combat (on enemies turn) and the
enemy should disappear. The message "The Gods
Intervene" will appear and battle will end.